Dual Meet Hall of Fame: Jackie Joyner (Kersee)

As a nod to the USC-UCLA rivalry, every spring will see one athlete from each of the two universities honored in the Dual Meet Hall of Fame. The last athlete was a Trojan and this one will be a Bruin.

She’s only the greatest athlete of all time, and possibly the most versatile, so Jackie Joyner (Kersee*) is a natural for the Dual Meet Hall of Fame.

My listing of Joyner’s career dual meet record looks rather sparse in terms of meets because I’m probably missing a bit. It’s also a bit sparse because in most of those seasons she was still playing basketball for the Bruins well into the early part of the West Coast track season. Joyner redshirted the 1984 season to prepare for the Olympics, too.

But when she competed…whew. She set two dual meet records that may never be broken. One was with a long jump of 22’ 11¼” (6.99 meters). Another was for the heptathlon.

Heptathlon? Yes, heptathlon. In an April 1982 triangular against USC and Utah State, Joyner did all seven heptathlon events (plus a leg on the 4×100). Scored on the current tables, it’s 5527 points in just under 3 hours.